


Mao Night

by HopeStoryteller



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Gen, Possibly Pre-Slash, Pre-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 18:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20643962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeStoryteller/pseuds/HopeStoryteller
Summary: Game night in hell? It's more likely than you'd think.The game of Mao has now begun.





	Mao Night

“The game of Mao has now begun.”

“Already?” Crowley protests, then swears under his breath.

Beelzebub snaps zir fingers, and a single card slides out of the deck face-down towards him, landing neatly on top of the rest of his cards. The deck itself is a peculiar one. It never runs out of cards or requires shuffling, but the cards are always bent or torn and usually flecked with what could be dried blood or could be mud.

Still, Crowley can’t complain. About the deck  _ or _ the fact that he’s starting this round with an extra card, because he really should have known better, and complaining will literally just get him more cards. Silently, he picks them up and examines them.

Ten of spades, five of diamonds, ten of diamonds, two of spades, eight of clubs, jack of diamonds. Not bad for a start, and he should be going after Beelzebub.

Beelzebub’s put down a three of spades as the dealer, and then for zir own turn plays an… ace of spades. Blessit. Maybe ze’ll forget to—

“Ace of spadezz,” ze says without a trace of emotion, zir gaze flicking to Dagon.

So much for zir forgetting it. 

Dagon eyes her cards briefly, then puts down an ace of clubs. She smiles cruelly at Beelzebub as she puts the rest of her cards—four now—down on the table and reclines, leaning back with her arms behind her head like she’s leaning back on a throne of some kind and not a rusty folding chair.

The folding chair collapses, and Dagon goes down with a yelp and a great deal of swearing. When she gets back up, she snaps her fingers and the chair fixes itself. She sits herself back in it, picks up her cards again, and—

“Are you  _ shitting me _ ,” the Lord of the Files mutters quietly, but not quietly enough. Five cards becomes six, and Dagon quietly begins plotting Beelzebub’s death via paperwork.

For zir part, Beelzebub looks  _ exceptionally _ satisfied with zirself when zir gaze travels back to Crowley.

Right. It’s his turn. It’s his turn, and he doesn’t have a club or an ace.

Crowley  _ groans. _

“My name is Crowley, and I’m stupid,” Crowley says with no small amount of bitterness. He picks a card—two of diamonds, he  _ still _ can’t play it—and glares at Hastur across the table.

No imagination, Hastur. Beelzebub, maybe. Dagon, bigger maybe. But Hastur and Ligur just make Mao Night not fun. Not remotely fun, the most anti-fun Crowley’s ever had.

Actually, no, that would be the fourteenth century.  _ Fuck _ the fourteenth century. But his silently made point still stands. Ligur hasn’t won a single round. Hastur won  _ one _ because Crowley was wallowing in the pit of fucking up his own blessed rules and Beelzebub and Dagon were too busy fucking each other up to realize that  _ Hastur _ was somehow winning.

And then he put  _ this _ rule in. 

Ligur examines his cards. Both his eyes and the chameleon on his head—which may or may not actually be Ligur himself, but at this point Crowley doesn’t want to know the answer to that  _ lovely _ question—turn an angry red.

No pokerface, either.

“My name is Ligur,” Ligur growls, “and Crowley’s stupid.”

The table is, for the first time since Mao Night started, completely silent. Until Hastur starts laughing, that is. At least, Crowley thinks it’s laughing and if it’s not, nobody here needs to know that Crowley is quite possibly the only demon that’s ever bothered to get CPR-certified.

“Am I?” Crowley asks, even as he knows it’ll get even  _ more _ cards added to his ever-growing pile. “Am I really?”

Beelzebub lets out an irritated sigh, then snaps zir fingers. Two cards fly off the deck, one to Ligur and one to Crowley.

“Worth it,” Crowley says lightly. There’s no chance in hell he’ll win this, not with Beelzebub and Dagon involved, but he can at least beat out Hastur, and  _ probably _ Ligur.

And if not, getting yet another card for breaking the silence rule was still worth it. It’s not like losing will be the end of the world.

(The next time Crowley plays Mao isn’t with present company. Instead, it’s with the Antichrist, his friends, and an angel with an unreasonably good pokerface. It’s also several years after the prophesied end of the world.)

**Author's Note:**

> Law of Spades - After playing a spade, you must say the name of the card.
> 
> Law of Aces - After playing an ace, the direction of play reverses.
> 
> Law of Clubs - After playing a club, the next person to play is skipped.
> 
> Law of Stupidity - After being unable to play a card, you must say "My name is _____ and I'm stupid."
> 
> The Law of Aces and the Law of Spades are, in my experience, the starting laws. The Law of Clubs was created by Crowley after he won a round, and the Law of Stupidity was created by Hastur because he has no imagination. These probably aren't the only ones in this game currently, but they're the only ones that came up.
> 
> As for the present day? Crowley would tell you that he always wins at Mao. He would be completely and utterly wrong, because while he comes up with really good (and by that I mean terrible for everyone involved) laws, he keeps getting penalty cards because he can't keep quiet. Still worth it, even if he can't figure out _how_ Aziraphale has _that good_ of a pokerface.


End file.
